Are automobiles living beings ?

[UM-Bot 10,470]

Ken Korczak: Some of the world’s top scientists say automobiles should be classified as living beings -- and that they also have “minds” and possibly even “souls." In his terrific book, “The Physics of Immortality,” Tulane University physics professor Dr. Frank Tipler says cars must be considered living entities because:“Cars self-reproduce ... granted, their reproduction is not autonomous; they need a factory to external to themselves. But so do male humans; to make a male baby, an external biochemical factory called a “womb” is needed, Granted, their reproduction requires another living species. But so does the reproduction of flowering plants ... The form of automobiles in their environment is preserved by natural selection; there is a fierce struggle for existence between various “races” of automobiles. Japanese and European automobiles are competing with native American automobiles for scare resources -- money and manufacturing ..”Agreeing with Tipler is evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins of Oxford University. He says that cars are not only alive, but are “living beings with minds and souls.”

Dawkins says cars are alive because they contain a great deal of information, and they can self-reproduce in the sense that there are human mechanics who can make a copy of the automobile. These mechanics are to automobiles what a living cell’s biochemical machinery is to a virus.I have the agree with Tipler and Dawkins. When I was in college, I paid $300 for an old midnight blue ‘66 Chevy pick-up that I came to love, and also started thinking of as a living being. I named my truck Pulchritude, which means “beautiful.” I not only sensed that Pulchritude was “alive” in the biological sense, but that she had a kind of consciousness, and was also fond of me in return.Pulchritude and I spent our crazy college days together, driving to school and back, going to parties, and just cruising around. On those occasions when I made the 500-mile trip to visit my mom back home, Pulchritude and I often took our time, taking the back roads, looking for adventure, stopping at parks or wayside rests -- sometimes we would just together and meditate, or watch the sun go down over a sparkling Minnesota lake.Pulchritude stayed with me for about five years after I graduated from college -- and then one day, tragedy struck.

As we were driving together down a remote dirt road in northern Minnesota, Pulchritude's engine suddenly blew up. Like a human being who unexpectedly has a massive heart attack, Pulchritude was dead.I got out of the driver’s seat, popped the hood and saw the steaming mass of machinery -- it was all seized up, her six cylinders scored and frozen in place, the engine block cracked. I think I was in shock for more than an hour. When I finally came to accept what had happened, I wept.The next day I solemnly towed Pulchritude home. I called up my neighbor, Bucky, who is a real gear-head, and whom I knew was currently restoring his own ‘66 Chevy pick-up. I told him that I wanted to donate the organs of my dear Pulchritude so that another could live. Bucky was ecstatic because he needed a water pump, and also wanted to harvest Pulchritude's transmission.It was difficult, but the knowing that some parts of Pulchritude would live on in another vechile -- and my conviction that Pulchritude's soul was now in heaven, traveling the endless dusty roads of eternity -- I was at peace. And someday, I know that I will join Pulchritude on those vast highways and byways of Elysium, riding together, driving free. I also have the comfort of knowing that, whatever the after life brings -- I will always have a ride.

[Marvy 0]

Is he for real? or just making dramatic and rhetorical story about his love with cars??

[rane 0]

i disagree...a living "being" should be defined as a biological creature with intelligence

now, if the car has computer technology, that would make it beocme INTELLIGENT..but not LIVING

don't living "beings" require brains or artificial intelligence?

cars may tell you when they need gas or something, but its not alive!...and they cannot reproduce!...humans have to reproduce them...MACHINES have to reproduce them

that makes them unlike living beings that can reproduce successfully wihtout the heklp of a 3rd party...however, AUTOMOBILES require someone or something to build it...not grow it

[Waspie_Dwarf 16,546]

i disagree...a living "being" should be defined as a biological creature with intelligence

now, if the car has computer technology, that would make it beocme INTELLIGENT..but not LIVING

don't living "beings" require brains or artificial intelligence?

Plants, fungi and single celled creatures such as amoeba do not have brains but are alive.

There has long been debate about whether virus' should be considered living as they can not reproduce using their own DNA, they use that of the cell thet infect. They do however reproduce of their own volition. With out the direct influence f man a car will neither undergo reproduction or evolve. And if we decide a car is alive then why not toasters or TVs or anyother machine.

When we produce self replicating machines then, arguably, we will have created a very simple form of artifical life (I have heard it argued that we have already done this with the computer virus as it capable of self reproduction and evolution).

[greywolf 38]

what a nut!

[Aristocrates 0]

wow...

[smallpackage 0]

I have lost all hope in man kind.

[IronGhost 43]

I have lost all hope in man kind.

Why?

[x o i s k 6]

I have lost all hope in man kind.

as have I...

[Azalin 2]

Think that was one of the worst reads in science history. If these are really the worlds top scientists at work, I agree with Small Package, I've lost hope in mankind.

[TheMeaningOfLife 0]

Well i dont see them as being alive but they sure can seem like another family member. Sometimes a car or truck will come up in a conversation as much as another family member.

[RamboIII 0]

Well i dont see them as being alive but they sure can seem like another family member. Sometimes a car or truck will come up in a conversation as much as another family member.

Yes, this could be metaphorically representing our dependence and adaptations to cars. But I don't know how he could have possibly meant it to be as if cars were living, breathing beings. People's imaginations draw them into believing things like this. They WANT to believe it so bad that it comes true to them, and there perceptions of things are extremely altered. Superstitious people may believe that the engine blowing up was a "curse", some may believe it is "fate", some may believe it is just "life" in all it's fairness. This one person, through all his experience believes it is the nature of the car when obviously, it was just an ordinary event stretched by his imagination.

And so what he came to love a car? I have loved my work, my passions, etc. So does this prove that physics are real, living beings? The fact that one day I lost my papers, does this mean that they got cancer and died??

One more question, did this book sell???

[IronGhost 43]

Think that was one of the worst reads in science history. If these are really the worlds top scientists at work, I agree with Small Package, I've lost hope in mankind.

Please! You are not thinking about this deeply enough! The idea of whether an automobile can be considered alive or not gets at some of the most fundamental questions we have about the nature of our own existence, and what it means to be alive. Consider the Von Neumann six criteria for what can make something a living being, or not:

(1) A living system encapsulates a complete description of itself.

(2) It avoids the paradox seemingly inherent in (1) by not trying to include a description of the description in the description.

(3) Instead, the description serves a dual role. It is a coded description of the rest of the system. At the same time, it is a sort of working model (which need not be decoded) of itself.

(4) Part of the system, a supervisory unit, "knows" about the dual role of the description and makes sure that the description is interpreted both ways during reproduction.

(5) Another part of the system, a universal constructor, can build any of a large class of objects—including the living system itself—provided that it is given the proper directions.

(6) Reproduction occurs when the supervisory system instructs the universal constructor to build a new copy of the system, including a description.

Admittedly, the Von Neumann criteria do eliminate cars because they not include universal constructors (No. 5). But it shows how close car5s come -- and other brilliant men, such as Tipler and Dawkins, agrree that cars are living organisims.

Note that most biologists consider a virus to be "dead" because they do not meet the 6 Von Neumann criterria. Also, a salt crystal can grow and reproduce on its own, yet it is not alive either.

Consider further: Cars are "evolving." Today, cars are "smarter" than they have ever been. As more and more computer technology is built into cars, their "intelligence" increases. When computers achieve true artifical intelligence in the near future -- will a car with an AI brain then be conidered alive?

The original colunm is designed to make you think -- to think outside the box, and push the limits of your imaginations!

[shakti_junkie 0]

I think there is alot more truth to this article than you guys think. Though cars may not have souls, they are alive as is everything else on the planet, even dead corpses. Vehicles are a part of nature. They transmit cargo and information from one location to another much like neuro networks do. It really is a divine thing. Most would think cars are merely something humans invented. While that may be true in part, where do these ideas come from? Certainly not our own free willed intention which doesnt actually exist for one. No more than a car chooses to go on green and stop on red, do we choose to hit the gas pedal. Theres no stick shift to our mechanism/body. We are infact on autopilot just the same. (The most of us that is) If you can manage to get past the foofiness of the subject and really give it some heavy thought It can be quite an eye opening experience. If you ask me I say yes, Automobiles are infact living beings. Maybe not in the sense of Herbie Fully Loaded or Knight Rider, none the less in there own right they are living organisms.

[ROGER 253]

There are some who suggest that "FIRE" also fits the requirements of a Life form. I find the idea to deep for my intellectual social environment.

[Boltwave 2]

Think that was one of the worst reads in science history. If these are really the worlds top scientists at work, I agree with Small Package, I've lost hope in mankind.

As do I, even androids with artificial intelligence don't have souls, the reason is because it's just computers recording data and memorizing it, and then processing it, that's really all there is to it, just computers and data, and a chip, there is no type of soul or individuality to a mechanical or bioenginered being, it's assanine.

[GreyWeather 13]

As do I, even androids with artificial intelligence don't have souls, the reason is because it's just computers recording data and memorizing it, and then processing it, that's really all there is to it, just computers and data, and a chip, there is no type of soul or individuality to a mechanical or bioenginered being, it's assanine.

erm.... the human brain also collects data, the brain is like a biological computer. and AI would also be able to express/and understand emotions when they need to - just like humans.

....and thats all it is to it.

Edited May 20, 2006 by Leliel

[ROGER 253]

Human Brains do process a lot of information like a Biological Computer. But experiences of life also dictate most of our actions. Would a good A.I. have enough similar experiences to make the decisions even close to what our brains do? And make the , to us , right decisions?

I dont think I want my car to be to much in control.

[GreyWeather 13]

Human Brains do process a lot of information like a Biological Computer. But experiences of life also dictate most of our actions. Would a good A.I. have enough similar experiences to make the decisions even close to what our brains do? And make the , to us , right decisions?

I dont think I want my car to be to much in control.

flash backs of steven kings "christine"

[rane 0]

Plants, fungi and single celled creatures such as amoeba do not have brains but are alive.

There has long been debate about whether virus' should be considered living as they can not reproduce using their own DNA, they use that of the cell thet infect. They do however reproduce of their own volition. With out the direct influence f man a car will neither undergo reproduction or evolve. And if we decide a car is alive then why not toasters or TVs or anyother machine.

When we produce self replicating machines then, arguably, we will have created a very simple form of artifical life (I have heard it argued that we have already done this with the computer virus as it capable of self reproduction and evolution).

a single cell structure has a nucleus, which functions as the brain of the organism...it controls the movement of the cell, ribosomes, membrane, ect.

i think that living beings should be defined as organisms with a DNA structure

DNA is the source of the living creatures ability to be funnctional as a biological entity

without DNA you cannot have a complex and developed living organism

if a virus contains DNA, then it would be considered living...however, a computer virus would an artificial being...it has been designed by a 2nd party though...but since it has been designed, like a DNA strand, it can have ceratin attributes specified for the program

i see a correlation that binary codes and DNA are alike...so if an artificial creation runs on binary code, a synthetic form of DNA, it would become an artificial entity

[rane 0]

technological entities and humans do not have souls...the soul does not exist..it is a myth from less advanced eras

the human soul is just the brain realizing itself as a conscious life form

there is nothing mystical about it...science can explpain it as an electromagnetic energy...this is the same energy that sorrounds the Earth

that would suggest the Earth is a living creature too, which also doesn't have a soul

[Grandpa Greenman 10,380]

I had this batter 92 F 150, it was easy to fix, it never stranded me, I don't think it had a soul in as much as it had a part of my energy in it. When I went to sell it, a guy came and wanted it for parts. I couldn't do it, I couldn't sell him that truck to kill. I waited and sold it to a girl who is still driving it.

I don't think cars are alive but we put our energies in them and they become an extention of ourselves, I think that is about as live as they get.

Edited May 21, 2006 by Darkwind

[shakti_junkie 0]

Plants, fungi and single celled creatures such as amoeba do not have brains but are alive.

There has long been debate about whether virus' should be considered living as they can not reproduce using their own DNA, they use that of the cell thet infect. They do however reproduce of their own volition. With out the direct influence f man a car will neither undergo reproduction or evolve. And if we decide a car is alive then why not toasters or TVs or anyother machine.

When we produce self replicating machines then, arguably, we will have created a very simple form of artifical life (I have heard it argued that we have already done this with the computer virus as it capable of self reproduction and evolution).

There is no reason why not, toasters tvs and any other machines are alive. Further nothing evolves without direct influence from other aspects of nature. It is an organising intelligence, a system. Just look at the different parts of a car engine. they all rely on eachother and work together for the greater purpose of making the car work. like flowers need bee's to pollinate them, man and metal will work together in a unison to create the life of a car. You really gotta utilize your right brain for this to click.

All matter is alive. example: Is your left foot not alive? does it have a mind of its own? no, does it have free will? no you have control over it. does that then mean it is not alive? Its alive like everything else. all a part of gods feelers. The definition of life, existence.

Edited May 21, 2006 by shakti_junkie

[jpjoe 23]

this is completely ridiculous. i cant even believe this type of crap has been posted here..

i define everything, living. (right...)

yeah, and everything is cute in its own way. (right......)

we should love not just our friends, but also our enemies. (Right..................)

In some sense, everything is senseless, including this. (RIGHT!)

Edited May 21, 2006 by jpjoe

[jesspy 208]

First this is a stupid idea.

second cars may not be needed soon

thirdly I saw something similar on one of those crackpot shows about the end of the world that said cars are alive and can think for themselves and apparently had proof with secruity footage from a car park. In the carpark cars without drivers are seen moving to different spots on their own even crashing into eachother as if it was on purpose. It was so stunt drivers in the cars as all the cars seemed to have tinted windows

Its a stupid i dea next they will say my toaster or tv is alive

But i guess this whole thing is made worse by the fact that people name their cars and will care for them better then their own family.